Will the Defendant please rise? Beldar's crystal ball reading on Trump's Manhattan sentence

Between now and election day, on the Trump legal front, there are only likely to be two very big events.

One will be the announcement of the SCOTUS' decision on the absolute immunity case. But that is widely expected to be a loss for him on the merits, the extent of which will depend on how narrowly the SCOTUS circumscribes and defines the limits of a qualified presidential immunity. He might get one count of the DC case knocked out, which he will portray as a victory; but he assuredly will continue to face trial in DC and FL unless he wins in November.

But the second is going to be Trump's sentencing. Judge Merchan has, throughout this case, written clear and cogent opinions explaining his important rulings — replete with factual findings and record citations of the sort an experienced trial judge uses to create a record that will withstand appeals.

Contrary to the predictions of most other legal pundits, I think Trump's sentence is more than likely to include a term of incarceration. It will by statute be limited to no more than 20 years but almost certainly not more than a fraction of that. I'd be surprised if it exceeded four. But I'd not be surprised if it were two years. If I had to pick a single most likely sentence, it would be one year plus a tightly restricted and lengthy term of probation, plus fines, costs, and some sort of public service picked to have the most likely rehabilitative effect (which is to say, what he'll most hate). The incarceration would likely be a form of house arrest designed to accommodate the Secret Service.

If I were pronouncing sentence, I'd sentence Trump to two weeks (14 days) on each of his 34 felony counts, stacked to a total of 476 days (just short of 16 months). One fortnight per felony. Let him argue that that violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

Here's my point: A lot of people who tuned in only briefly and from 40,000 feet to the trial itself still have only a fuzzy idea of what it was all about. They're were shocked and left somewhat mystified by the verdict. But they're going to be much more shocked by a sentence that includes incarceration.

And Judge Merchan's sentencing decision is going to be the most powerful, important compilation yet of all the nastiest details of both Trump's crimes as found by the jury, and all the other circumstances — including his criminal contempt findings, his lack of remorse, his unsuitability for and resistance to rehabilitation, and his continuing pattern of other fraud and civilly culpable misbehavior in other cases against him and his businesses — that can justify putting a former POTUS, or any person similarly situated, behind bars.

Judge Merchan's pronouncement of sentence will be the New York State criminal justice system's most important, concise, and powerful statement yet regarding Trump's criminal nature. Whatever any pundit or lawyer or Bubba says about it, their pronouncements will not end with "It is SO ORDERED." There is a wide gap between punditry and pronouncement of sentence, the former of which usually doesn't involve ankle monitors or cell bars.

And yes, despite what a lot of very poorly informed talking heads on TV say, there are indeed precedents that include incarceration for felony violations of the New York business records falsification statute under which Trump was convicted. He's old, but the prior civil and criminal determinations against him show he's spent many of those years engaged in fraud. He's a first offender as a felon, but not as a lawbreaker, and there were 34 of those felonies. The crimes were nonviolent, but not victimless — the entire public is victimized by electoral fraud, tax fraud, and business record fraud.

Trump has insisted on being his own top lawyer, and he's had history's greatest fool for a client. He has done everything imaginable to help create a factual record that will justify a sentence of incarceration, and there's almost nothing in the other pan of the scales of justice that weighs in favor of either the trial or appellate courts exercising their discretion over sentencing to his benefit.

Voters are unlikely to see him in cuffs before election day; any incarceration will surely be stayed pending appeals at least through the initial level, which won't play out until 2025. But the distillation of the entire criminal case into a number of months or years of incarceration, if that's part of his sentence, is going to have an even bigger impact than the verdict.

Finally: Even if you reject my analysis and go with the crowd that's saying "No jail time," surely we can all agree: No mere "slap on the wrist" is in the cards.